


You Are the Moon That Breaks the Night

by TheNarator



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-22
Updated: 2013-08-22
Packaged: 2017-12-24 08:20:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/937725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNarator/pseuds/TheNarator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Talia Hale and Claudia Novak meet on the first day of second grade. Claudia has just moved to town, and Talia finds it refreshing to meet someone who isn't at least a little scared of her because her family lives in the middle of the woods. Claudia likes this girl who isn't afraid to growl at the bullies like she's an animal and send them running scared to hide behind the teacher. Talia talks about how she's almost done being little and so her mother can have another baby soon, and how she doesn't like that her mom might wait a while anyway because it makes Talia feel like she isn't really grown up yet. Claudia talks with her whole body, flailing her arms and opening her mouth wide like she can't get out all the big words she knows otherwise, and she doesn't notice when Talia slips up and refers to her mother's future baby as a pup. Talia trades her string cheese for Claudia's beef jerky and they are best friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Are the Moon That Breaks the Night

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the song "Howl" by Florence + the Machine

Talia Hale and Claudia Novak meet on the first day of second grade. Claudia has just moved to town, and Talia finds it refreshing to meet someone who isn't at least a little scared of her because her family lives in the middle of the woods. Claudia likes this girl who isn't afraid to growl at the bullies like she's an animal and send them running scared to hide behind the teacher. Talia talks about how she's almost done being little and so her mother can have another baby soon, and how she doesn't like that her mom might wait a while anyway because it makes Talia feel like she isn't really grown up yet. Claudia talks with her whole body, flailing her arms and opening her mouth wide like she can't get out all the big words she knows otherwise, and she doesn't notice when Talia slips up and refers to her mother's future baby as a pup. Talia trades her string cheese for Claudia's beef jerky and they are best friends.

The Argents come to Beacon Hills when Claudia and Talia are just starting middle school. They send a boy named Chris to school and Talia doesn't like how he seems drawn to Claudia almost at once. Even if Claudia did only talk to him because he had to start school on his birthday, and even if she is her usual kind understanding self when he whispers (as though the werewolf five feet away can't hear him) that he is a year older than he should be because his family moves around a lot and he had to repeat a year, Talia doesn't like him one bit. She is an alpha's daughter, and even in a pack as big as hers she has always had the best of everything and has never had to share if she didn't want to. Argent's blood is all over her fist before she realizes that werewolf hunters don't tell their children about things until they're quite old.

They aren't above sticking wolfsbane in Claudia's backpack the first time she visits them, the first time in years she hasn't come to the Hale house after school, but Chris knows nothing. He sits with them at lunch and makes everything unbearably tense, but Claudia only goes to his house once.

Chris leaves soon enough though, and it is just the two of them again. Over the next few years Claudia becomes quite pretty, and her scent matures into the that of a young lady, and she starts to smell enticing in a way Talia doesn't fully understand but knows she enjoys. In those day the only time Talia has seen two girls kissing was in the big gatherings of multiple packs in Hale territory that happen sometimes, so she doesn't bring it up. When Claudia asks if her best friend finds the Stilinski boy a year up from them cute at all she says that he only bathes every three or four days and doesn't brush his teeth more than once a week, and thanks her lucky stars Claudia cannot hear her heartbeat.

Talia's mother has another baby, finally. Some part of Talia had been holding its breath, waiting for this final sign that her mother considered her mature enough not to require the full care and attention of the whole pack. The baby's name is Peter and Talia loves him dearly. He makes her think, though, think about things she hadn't thought about before. When her mother dies she will be alpha, and she will need someone to be alpha after her. She wants to see Claudia holding a baby, holding a wolf pup, but she puts that dream from her mind. Some dreams are just not to be.

When the Argents come back Talia and Claudia are in high school, and it only takes a single moment of eye contact to realize that Chris is not as ignorant as he was before. At the end of the school day they go out behind the equipment shed; he has a bicycle chain and she has her claws. His weapon is rubbed with an oil made from wolfsbane though, she finds out the first time he catches her across the cheek with it, but he avoids her like she has some kind of easily transmutable disease, and for all that he's prepared his weapon he isn't very good with it.

He drops it when they hear Claudia scream.

There's something in that sound that makes Talia's blood sing and her head spin with thoughts of  _sister_  and  _pack_  and even  _mate._  When she turns and sees the horrified look on her friend's face she can't banish the color from her eyes fast enough.

Claudia takes it rather well, considering.

She insinuates herself between Chris and Talia and orders them to explain. They are both too young and inexperienced with fighting and conflict and the shame of being caught doing something wrong to deny her. Talia growls when Chris likens werewolves to rabid dogs, and Chris scoffs when Talia calls the bite a gift, but all in all the picture they give is fairly impartial.

Chris has a younger sister named Kate, about the same age as Peter. Talia finds this out because Claudia insists on being friends with him. All three of them are friends for three solid months, during which time he not only sits with them at lunch but goes out with them after school every day, to the diner or the bowling alley or the library, if they have a test. Their families don't like it, but Claudia is insistent, badgering them endlessly until they let themselves be dragged along just be spared her pout. With Claudia sitting between them they don't dare make many jokes at the other's expense, and Talia discovers that Chris isn't half bad at soccer, for a human. He isn't so bad at all, actually, during those three months, and before long his family has to move away again, following the danger, going where the wolves are most violent. When he leaves he tells Talia that as long as the Hale pack doesn't hurt anyone their two families need not be at odds. He says when Talia is alpha they will have an alliance, and they shake on it, which is all they can really do.

When he is gone Talia offers Claudia the bite. She says her mother would do it in a heartbeat, if Talia asked, because Claudia is young and strong and she already knows everything, even the risks. She lists all the ways that the bite is a gift, how much power it brings, how werewolves never get sick, and how they stay young and beautiful for so much longer than normal people. When Claudia turns her down, saying she wants to stay neutral, saying she doesn't want to give up her humanity, or being friends with Chris, Talia goes home and cries and cries and cries.

Then she dries her eyes and comes up with a plan.

The Hale pack is big and strong and old. Not even the hunters will mess with them most of the time, unless one of them has gone rogue and actually killed someone. Alphas and their packs come from all over for gatherings. It is easy enough to convince one of them to do a favor for the heiress to the Hale line of alphas. He's a violent one, a bit mad, and the Argents are closing in on his territory because apparently his pack have killed a few hunters. He wants in good with a stronger pack to protect himself and his betas, and his teeth are about the only things he's good with.

When Claudia finds a note signed "Stilinski" in her locker, inviting her to meet him in the school after hours, she doesn't even consider not going. When he isn't by the door where he said he'd meet her, she only hesitates a moment before venturing inside. When she sees the glowing red eyes of an alpha werewolf, she barely has time to run.

He gets his fingers around her ankle when she's almost at the top of the stairs, and she kicks him in the face with the hard plastic heel of her little plastic dress shoe. She thinks she hears his nose break, but all she can think about it getting the fire extinguisher on the next landing. The freezing, pressurized smoke disorients him and the hard end of the canister definitely makes something in his face go  _crunch_  before it knocks him back down the stairs. Before he is back on his feet Claudia is halfway to the nearest broom closet, and when he walks slowly up to the door, calling for her as one might call a wayward cat, she is ready with a bottle of ammonia to throw in his face.

By the time he gets it out of his eyes enough to see and his nose enough to track her by scent she is all the way downstairs in the girls' locker room.

The girls' volleyball coach has a phone in her office, and Claudia dials the number for the Hale house with shaking fingers. Talia is waiting by the phone, waiting for the call that means she and Claudia will be running through the forest together on the next full moon. Instead she gets the sound of Claudia sobbing in fear, and the immensity of what she's done hits her in the stomach like an arrow.

She is on the floor and out the door before Claudia is finished explaining.

Talia Hale runs for all she's worth. She runs as she's never run before, neither from danger or toward safety, and her body burns with it. Before she realizes it she is shifting in a way she's never seen, never even heard of, fur shielding her body from the cold and her face elongating into a snout and her knees reversing into a shape more suitable for going on all fours until running nearly becomes flying.

By the time she reaches the school she is a full, adult, graceful black wolf.

By the time she reaches the school the alpha is on fire.

He is dragging his burning body down the hall outside the chemistry room, snapping and growling as he claws fruitlessly at Claudia's ankles. She is holding a fire extinguisher and backing away slowly, unwilling to take her eyes off her attacker. When Talia shifts back to human form Claudia puts out the chemical-created blaze, and they take the charred and half dead man to see the Hale pack's druid emissary.

He isn't there, but his nephew Alan is. He treats the alpha's wounds, but ultimately there is nothing to be done. Claudia cries over his death, and Talia comforts her as she tries to convince herself Alan's gaze is not judgmental.

Alan tells Claudia how impressed he is that she was able to fight off a fully grown werewolf, and an alpha at that. Claudia confesses that she has never felt more helpless in her life. Talia offers her the bite again, reminding her of the strength it gives, of the safety of the pack, but Claudia just shakes her head. For a moment Talia fears the worst, that Claudia has come to hate werewolves and will join the hunters instead, but then she looks Alan in the eye and asks him to teach her to be an emissary.

Talia's status within the pack goes up considerably. She is a true alpha, with a talent to change her shape to such a degree as has not been seen in her family or any other for generations. She is lauded and adored as a great leader, almost like a messiah, and even Claudia talks about how she will be a great protector, how strong must be her desire to defender her pack. Talia longs to take her by the shoulders, shake her, yell in her face.  _Not the pack, you!_

Claudia only asks once what she knows about the attack. She rests her hand on Talia's wrist and Talia knows for a moment what true fear is like, the fear of losing the thing which matters most to her. But she quavers out the only truth she can, that she would  _never, ever, do anything to hurt you_ , and then Claudia throws her arms around Talia's neck and sobs out an apology for ever being suspicious in the first place, and Talia can breathe again.

Claudia is a good emissary. She learns quickly, masters skills like she was born for it, becomes wise and strong. Alan is still important, is still the heir to a line of druids that has been allied with the Hale pack for generations, but a pack can never have too many allies. They advise Talia as she grows into her role, as she becomes an adult fit to lead the pack, as her mother steps down perhaps earlier than she might have to allow the true alpha to take command. She rapidly becomes widely known, and alphas from all over come not only for gatherings, but to seek her advice. Some packs settle close by, carefully outside Hale territory, and wolves of varying degrees of familiarity are constantly traipsing through the manor. She develops an inner circle, a few trustworthy alphas and their emissaries, in addition to the two of her own.

Talia loves the man she marries more than her wolf does. She's the only one she knows that thinks of her wolf as being something separate from herself, but it helps her organize her thoughts. She loves her husband, and she loves her pack, and on most days they come first and that is that. There are nights, though, when her wolf howls for Claudia, desire burning through her veins and the unheard cry rattling her bones. It's mostly on the full moon, and if she goes running in wolf form and ends up near the Stilinski house, no one questions her.

She only marries after the deputy has proposed to Claudia. To be fair she thinks the man is worthy, however preferable she might find the idea of Claudia marrying a wolf, marrying into the pack. The human couple are in no hurry to have children, but Talia doesn't have that luxury. She has her first pup, little Laura, a year after she graduates from college, and Claudia names her for an herb that is meant to provide protection. Laura's little brother follows two years after, a beloved yet unplanned blessing, and Claudia jokes that he must know it because the first time she holds him she claims that his face looks sour. She calls him Sourwolf, but names him Derek, meaning People Ruler. Talia loudly bemoans allowing Claudia so much sway on the names of her children, but doesn't mean a word of it. Her husband is out of the room at the time, and for a moment she can pretend that the pup is both hers and Claudia's.

The first time Claudia miscarries Talia tells her that there are no infertile werewolves. Claudia reminds her that there are few infertile humans nowadays, and the conversation goes no further.

Derek is six, Laura is eight, Peter is fourteen and the Argents are back in town when Claudia makes it past the point when her last pregnancy failed. Talia doesn't particularly like when Chris comes to visit with a very curious Kate in tow, especial not since Claudia is so far along she looks ready to pop, but their alliance has held up to now and she will not risk it. Despite being an emissary and technically a member of the pack as far as the alpha is concerned, Claudia will have to give birth in a hospital and not in the manor, in the center of Hale territory and surrounded by wolves and family and the scent of all things familiar. She bites her tongue when Chris leaves the smell of his hand on Claudia's belly, centimeters away from her unborn pup, but she rubs her face on the spot where he touched and replaces his scent with her own. Claudia's eyes twinkle with amusement, and Talia is happy.

On her next visit to the now licensed veterinarian Dr. Deaton, Talia learns that she is pregnant again. Quite by accident, when she catches Deaton in a lie about Claudia's pregnancy, she also learns of something that her friend has been hiding from her for some time.

Talia is not proud to admit that her temper gets the better of her. She bursts unannounced into the Stilinski house when the deputy isn't home, practically breaking down the door in her haste and anger. She rails at Claudia, screams and yells in helpless desperation, demanding to know why Claudia had still been trying to conceive after she had been diagnosed with cancer.

She's angry at Claudia for not telling her, but also angry at herself for not noticing the signs, for being so helpless. Her wolf is howling at her to do something, to shift and fight and defend a member of her pack, but there is no opponent that can be defeated with her teeth and claws. Claudia had stopped her chemotherapy while she was pregnant, and without treatment her condition is advancing quickly. She could be dead within a few years, will almost certainly be dead within ten years. She's being hurt, being killed, and Talia does the only thing she can think of.

This time she doesn't ask for Claudia to accept the bite, she demands it. She ignores her friend's indignant cries and seizes her arm, tearing open the sleeve of her maternity shirt and bringing the pale wrist to her lips for the kiss that will bind Claudia to her as long as she lives.

Claudia hits her in the face with a handful of powdered mistletoe, and tells her to sit down and listen.

She will not accept the bite while she is pregnant. After the disastrous end to her last pregnancy she will not risk the health of her baby, even over Talia's insistence that the bite can only make him stronger. There is no precedent for such a transformation, no evidence of how it will effect mother or child, and in Claudia's weakened state it is more likely to kill her than do her any good.

Then Talia asks her about after the child is born.

She will still be weak, she reminds Talia. Still unlikely to survive. She wants to have as much time with her family as she can. Her husband doesn't even know about werewolves, and despite Talia's argument that this is easily fixed Claudia wants him to remain untouched by the supernatural if she can manage it. She will not pressure him into a wolf pack, nor will she do anything of the kind to her son. Even if his father is human, if his mother is a werewolf he will inevitably seek the bite for himself.

 _You're dying,_  Talia begs.  _Let me help you._

Claudia shakes her head. The answer is no.

 _I won't watch you die_ , are Talia's parting words as she leaves the house, and Claudia watches her go with a growing sense of dread.

Claudia's son is born in a hospital. He is given a name that sounds strange and foreign and does not feel at all pleasant on Talia's tongue. Talia isn't present, nor are any of the pack, and Laura asks why this is, though Derek scarcely understands the implication. It's wrong that he wasn't born surrounded by pack, that he spends his first days alone with naught but his parents and a plethora of strangers, but it's a wrong that Talia will soon right. Claudia's place, and the place of her pup, will always lie with the pack.

The day Claudia gets home from the hospital with her baby a mysterious disturbance calls the deputy away close to nightfall. Talia has left Peter to watch her pups and gathered three betas, all her own, to the Stilinski house. They stand at the edge of the property, clearly visible through the windows, waiting for night to fall and the moon to rise. Claudia peaks out an upstairs window a few times, her expression grim and worried. Talia's heart bleeds for her friend, her wolf howling at her to offer solace to her packmate, but she reminds herself and her wolf that after tonight Claudia will have nothing to fear in this world.

The first beta she sends in, just after the near-full moon rises, is ejected through the upstairs window. He has timber burn, from a bat made of mountain ash Claudia obtained some years ago. The other two get edgy but she snaps at them not to lose their nerve. She's their alpha, and they'll follow her anywhere.

She smells it as soon as she gets inside; wolfsbane, in an incense burner judging by the smell, and probably more than one throughout the house. She can smell Claudia waiting upstairs, smell the pup in the cradle, and the emotions radiating off her friend in waves. The thick stench of fear, coupled with hot anger and bitter defiance. There's something more there though, something like sorrow, like the salty tang of tears that Talia longs to lick away, along with any blood from the wound. There is nothing that her mouth won't fix.

The second beta goes down with a bullet in one shoulder, howling in pain as mistletoe and wolfsbane work their way through his system. For a moment Talia fears a hunter, maybe Chris come to get in the way, but the nursery door is open and Claudia is holding the gun. The third beta spooks when he sees what happened, rushes Claudia without thinking, and handful of mountain ash in his face distracts him long enough for her to send him hurtling out the window to join his fellow.

Then it is just two women, facing each other alone.

Talia attacks, launching herself at Claudia in her wolf form and bowling her over. She gets a mouthful of mountain ash wood, fights the pain of toxic splinters piercing her gums as she chews her way through the bat. At last it gives between her powerful jaws, and Claudia rolls and flips them, throwing Talia over her head. This puts Talia between her and cradle though, so she's on her feet almost immediately, drawing the gun out of her waistband as she moves to block her son once more and Talia stands up on two feet.

 _Tell me the truth,_  says Claudia unexpectedly, and Talia can see how strong she is that she will not let the tears fall.  _When I was sixteen . . . it was you, wasn't it? You arranged the attack?_

 _I needed you,_  Talia tells her, truthfully, because if she's asking the question she already knows the answer. _I still need you. I'm not your enemy._

 _You are what you've made of yourself,_  is Claudia's conclusion.

She takes aim with the gun and Talia darts forward, grabbing her wrist and pointing the gun at the ceiling before it goes off. They struggle for it and Talia's fangs are out, snapping at Claudia's arm, trying to sink her aching teeth into pure, soft flesh. A human is no match for the strength of a wolf, and Claudia is left with no recourse but to twist her body and throw Talia over her shoulder, pinning her to the floor beneath one foot. She hasn't lost her grip on the gun, and points it at Talia now.

 _Why won't you let me help you!_  Talia demands.

That last thing Claudia ever says to her is, _I don't want your help._

Talia wakes up in the animal clinic with her betas by her side and Deaton leaning over her, and the sick feeling of incomparable loss in her stomach.

Claudia's chemo starts again as soon as she can switch her son to formula. It occurs at Beacon Hills Memorial, which she feels is safe enough. There is a mountain ash barrier around the house at all times now, and she maintains it fastidiously. She knows Deaton is her ally, and will not permit an attack when she is truly vulnerable.

The nurse that always seems to end up caring for her during her treatment is a cheerful woman named Melissa. She always brings flowers to brighten up the room, and often spends her break sitting on the empty bed beside Claudia's, and they talk. Melissa got into nursing because she wanted to help people, and felt that being a doctor was too hands-off, too impersonal. Her husband is an ass, but they are trying for their first child, and his career as a federal agent allowed them to get an incredible house to start their family. Halfway through the first round of Claudia's chemo Melissa conceives, but stays at work until she's so far along she can barely walk, and so manages to witness Claudia's cancer go into remission.

They stay in touch, although casually. Claudia helps Melissa choose between two possible names; Conner and Scott. They pick Scott, ultimately, because it's the one Melissa likes as opposed to the one her husband suggested, and because the meaning only refers to where he comes from, not where he is going.

The first time Melissa shows up at the Stilinski house with a black eye and a sobbing toddler with a cigarette burn on his arm, Claudia takes her husband's gun and runs the bastard out of town. They make damn sure Melissa gets full custody and the house in the divorce, though Agent McCall gets nearly everything else. He leaves a watch for his son to inherit, but otherwise washes his hands of Beacon Hills.

The cancer returns when Stiles is eight. Scott is seven at the time, but Stiles was held back a year in kindergarten due to his ADD, so they are in the same grade. There are days, when the chemo is intense and the side-effects get bad, that Claudia's resolve wavers. She contemplates calling Talia, begging for a cure, but then she sees the prickling of hair on Stile's scalp and remembers how he insisted on shaving it, for her, to be like her, and she puts down the phone.

Claudia Stilinski wastes away before her son's eyes. She slips quietly into death, her hand in his even as she grows cold. Her husband is not there. As she lies dying, she glances up and sees Talia Hale, looking as young and strong and healthy as the day they parted ways, and she panics just a little, clutching at her son with her frail arms as though to protect him even now. Talia shakes her head. That is not what she came for.

A lot happens to Talia, after that night in the nursery. She has her third pup, and names her Cora, for the heart that is now missing from her life. Derek and Laura are young enough that they forget Claudia when she is no longer a daily part of their lives, but she has been like a second sister to Peter for too long, and for him it isn't so easy. He takes his lesson from what happened between them, and somehow Talia isn't even surprised when she finds that Peter's craving for a girl from school has led him down the same path it led her. His ploy works better than hers, but like divine punishment it fails to get him what he wants, and Paige dies in his arms beneath the roots of the Nemeton. Guilt turns his eyes blue, as they would have Talia's had she not become an alpha, and she tells him he is as beautiful as ever because she hopes that it is true of herself.

She warns the pack away from Stiles, and with Claudia fading from their memories with each moon by the time he is ten none of them know him by sight or scent. Some day Chris Argent will see a flicker of something oddly familiar in the defiant eyes of a human boy who runs with wolves, whose words cut deep and nearly shame him into give up the hunt, but he won't dwell on it. Some day a half-remembered smell will tickle Peter's nose as he threatens a clever boy into helping him in a quest for revenge, make him grip the back of the boy's neck like a wolf carrying a pup in its mouth, but otherwise he will think nothing of it.

The same scent will draw Derek to a window that was once the point of exit for two betas in a misguided attack. It will creep into his senses, settle underneath his skin, make him want and need and  _crave._  It will make him harbor thoughts he really shouldn't for a boy so much younger than himself, and the temptation will be too great for him to resist.

Alphas of the Hale line never did have much self-control.

**Author's Note:**

> This work is inspired by (but is in no way linked to) "A Fool for Fire" by thebatwiggler
> 
> It is also inspired by two pieces of meta from tumblr user shipsanddip, found here:
> 
> http://shipsanddip.tumblr.com/post/56256838694/the-visionary-peter-hale-why-last-nights-episode
> 
> and here:
> 
> http://shipsanddip.tumblr.com/post/56644271391/the-visionary-peter-hale-continued
> 
> and also a bit from tumblr user saucefactory and AO3 author saucery here:
> 
> http://saucery.livejournal.com/51923.html


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